control of the committee system unless you roll. >> there has been some important legislation blocked in the senate. i can think of the bills on consumer product safety, mandatory recalls of unsafe consumer products, bills to crack down on drug dealers, to crack down on auto theft. they have all been frustrated in the senate and we're looking at opportunities to take care of the problem. i think canadians are clear on these measures that they want to see as an act. but in terms of filling senate seats are other actions, i have not made any decisions. >> there is a perception when it comes to detainees, during the period of 2006, not says the new agreement, that your government is covering up and denying information. .

i think the facts are clear. there were problems with the agreement. we inherited them and we came into office. the military, our diplomats made efforts to fix things, and i think we have a pretty good effort of having made the changes. >> when this thing came in, you could have simply said that these prisons are not the best place and we did not think people are being tortured but you can never be sure. you were saying that it is absolutely not possible. >> wherever there has been evidence of problems, the

military has taken appropriate actions. i think canadians understand this. one thing that is confusing, these are not allegations against the government of canada or canadian military personnel. they are allegations that problems in afghanistan and its correctional system. i think the record is clear that canadian military officials have handled themselves with the high standards of behavior. i think we should be very proud of that. quite frankly, i think during this time of year is -- during this time of year we should be thinking of them in our thoughts and prayers and thanking them for the tremendous effort they have done in what is an extreme violence party. -- extremely mylan country. >> denying information to the

military complaints commission, no budget, taking the elections -- are these ferret allegations? >> i find the documents story really quite amusing. tens of thousands of pages of documents have been released as they have to be under the law. we follow the law at all times. we act on advised by lawyers when it comes to any kind of litigation in court. some of these cases have already been thrown out. i am confident that our our diplomats and military people handled the situation. >> it will you follow parlance will? -- parliament's will? >> it is not politicians, the government, or the opposition. they are made by lawyers following the loss on the books. >> there is no firm decision yet that you will in fact, go with

that decision? >> government lawyers are required to follow the lot in terms of what they can and cannot released publicly. >> what do you make of the 100 or so embassadors that said the mistreated richard? this will make it difficult for the civil servants to be able to give the truth will advise or the best advice they possibly can? are you facing some kind of [inaudible] and the terms of civil service? >> i think some of them are very concerned. the officials and diplomats have been before the committee to refute some of those allegations. >> mission in afghanistan in 2011. what is going to happen after that time line? >> canada will move to a mission obviously focused on

development and humanitarian assistance. that is the track we have been on since 2008. we have been stepping up efforts to train afghan security forces said they can handle a greater load of the day-to-day responsibilities for the security of their country. we have been trying to transition to a more civilian oriented mission. i noticed what president obama has recently done in terms of the additional troop commitments but in terms of how they have structured the missions. these things all happened correspond with the decisions we came to way back in 2008. i think it is a confirmation we are on the right track. afghanistan is going to remain a very challenging theater for the world as well the problems in neighboring pakistan. >> are you now confident that the agreement is not going to

expose canadian forces in afghanistan between now and 2011 to participate in war crimes as a result of possible afghan torture? >> yes, i am confident of that. that is why we have such agreements in place. the previous government thought it had a good agreement, but it turned out there were some deficiencies. at all times when we get information that requires us to improve our agreements, that is what we have done. this system has been working well since then. it has not been perfect. we had transfers on a couple of occasions and have had to respond to a few situations, but i think we have adequate monitoring and the program to help develop their own a correctional system. i think we're making progress.

>> we have had a lot of trouble this year. it has been interesting. i am probably in need of rest after all of this. >> president obama has been in place almost one year. you have met a couple of times. how are you getting along? >> we get along very well. you should know what i have always said, the prime minister of canada, regardless of party, has an obligation to establish a good relationship with the president of the united states because the united states is so a important to our vital interests, economic, security interests. they are our best ally and closest neighbor. they are our very best friend in the world as well and we should not forget that. we have established a good relationship. we have been working to align our approach is on a number of

economic and environmental issues. i enjoy working with president obama. i do not envy him. his challengers are much greater than mine. they have so many more global responsibilities dain canada but the problems with the economy, health care, you name it, there frankly so much more. i do not envy his position. as i have said to my american friends, we are here to try and be helpful while protecting our own interests. >> you were recently in china. let's get your perception of the premier who seemed to give you a dressing down for taking so long to come. they are in very powerful players. when was your perception? >> we attend international

summits quite regularly and i have had a chance to have bilateral meetings at a number of these summits. what strikes me most about the chinese leadership is the degree to which it really is a collective leadership. you give me any number of chinese leaders and their lines and position are all the same. they work very much as the communist party. it is not a charismatically leader driven party. it is now a collective leadership. i find that they want to have good and productive relationships while promoting their interests. we are dealing with a different political system. to be effective, you have to be open to them and have to defend your interests because these are people who know what they want.

>> western countries still regard al qaeda as a serious threat. is there another serious threat you see limning? america seems to be pointing toward iran. do you agree? >> i think international terrorism driven by islamic extremism remains a threat worldwide and in many particular countries. the rtc from iran and north -- the threats you see from iran and north korea are real. i have a great concern about the government of iran about its nuclear ambition combined with its malignant ideologies, anti- western, this is a very real danger in the world. when we are at summits and work closely with our fellow

international partners we try to coordinate efforts we can to deal with these situations. these are things that you can, as a leader, loosely about. >> how worried about you are as -- how worried are you about him an israeli attack? >> i think this is something we should all be profoundly concerned about. i have expressed my concerns in the strongest possible language to our international partners. >> what are we sang directly to iran? what our are people saying to them -- what are our people saying? >> we have been leading the world in terms of expressing our concerns and our repulsion at

president of management -- president's human-rights record. i do not think anyone has a question about where we stand on the iranian regime in terms of its human-rights violations and its desire to get nuclear weapons. >> we will be continuing with one fighter bloc for our audience and we will have some important questions coming from them to you in just a moment. ♪ happy birthday to you >> i know you are a busy guy. i was wondering how does a guy like you keep in shape? but my question to you, sir, do you plan on writing another hockey but? >> what sort of resolution the planning on making? >> let's take them from the top, sir. how do you share -- how do you

stay in shape? >> my doctor tell you i do not. since then became prime minister i have tried to eat better and i have lost a little bit of weight. i do some activity with my son and i have been playing tennis this year and a little bit of ping-pong. the problem i have is the way i have always tried to stay in shape is to play with my son. it is less and less of a contest. i have trouble beating him at anything. >> what about a hot -- a hockey book? >> i have made good progress. i am in this stage of writing but we do have some research left. it is a book on an early tame -- team and for those who are

specialized in hockey history. i work on it about half an hour day for six years. we are starting to make progress. i can see the light at the end of the tunnel. >> the third question was about new year's resolutions. >> i have not made any yet. i first resolution is to get through the next couple of days and take some down time to reflect. i feel pretty good even though i know it has a new -- has been a difficult year for canadians. i feel optimistic about 2010. if you recall, i did not feel optimistic for this year were the year before. i feel optimistic going forward. we're going to be hosting the olympics and have a a bunch of big international summits. probably the thing that i think we have done really well this year is we focused on really governing the country. let the opposition called in parliament but did not get

distracted and focus on the things that matter to people. and we have had some success this year. >> i have to ask you this. piano man. to convince you to get up on stage and do that? was it your wife? -- who convinced you to do that? >> you know the story. it was my wife. i wish she had come to me earlier, but she came to mean two weeks before the concert and said that she wanted me to play in this gala. i had been practicing with his band from ottawa for fun. at the same time i was attracted to it because one of the advantages you get is you get to do things you normally would not do.

normally i can sing and play a little bit but no one would want to hear me perform in a concert. i started to think, well if i do not do this i will always regretted so we put together a few practices and had some people over. we mustered up the courage and did it. i was more nervous about that than anything i have done in public life but it seems now fun. >> i was with a bunch of liberals and there was a gas. they said there is his majority. -- there was a gasp. do you think you are now in a situation where you could possibly win a majority government? >> we will know in the next election. i have been saying no one wants to have an election. for the past year polls have looked pretty good. it is great to have polls when

we do not have elections anyway. we still have work to do to get the country to the last phases of this recession into a genuine recovery and then looking down the road at how we take advantage of the situation we find ourselves in in terms of a logger global recovery. i am not focused on it right now. >> he mentioned the olympics. everyone is looking forward to the first gold medal won by canadians in canada. >> we are going to have more than one goal. we have a good winter olympic team. since 1988, we have been building constantly. we had a great finish in italy. i'm confident we will see a number of gold medals. >> we are seeing the torch run catching on. it doesn't say some media but canadians and the way we handle patriotism? -- doesn't it say something

about canadians? >> in spite of the challenges we all have, particularly economic, i think the country is feeling pretty good about itself and is proud. i think people are pretty excited about hosting the olympic games. pay think there is a deep well -- it is not patriotism in this sense we think of it with a flag-waving but a deep attachment to the country. people around the world really admire our country. we are one of those countries that is big enough to have some influence but not big enough to threaten anyone. i think events like this bring that out and canadians are feeling pretty good. i think they are excited about the olympics and i am confident when it is all over they will have reason to look back on it with considerable pride parade

>> about the hockey team and the gold medal game, are we going to be in its? who will it be against? >> haven't you tried to draw me into this situation before? we will have a great team. we will have tough competition. the russian team is going to be very strong. obviously we will be there. i hope to go to the gold medal games and i am confident we will be in its, but let's just remember to remind people there is a lot more to a less than just talking. i know hockey is important to all those including me, but it is just one aspect of the spectacle of athletic excellence without parallel. i hope hockey does not breed of all of the oxygen. >> i think we can count on the fact that we will be looking forward to opening ceremony on

february 12th and the two week period that will be fun. i wish you and your family all the best. had a great 25th. >> i want to wish with of you and your viewers as well in very merry christmas and a happy new year. >> what do you think, bob? >> we will find out whether the popular home renovation tax credit will be extended. the best news is he is enormously optimistic about recovery in 2010. he talked about environmental policies saying we had no choice but to partner with the united states otherwise you could see wholesale industries moving to the united states and lose hundreds of thousands of jobs. >> it is striking that for the first time in a couple of years he is looking forward with optimism. i am lloyd robertson. >> the british house of commons returns from its break this

week. we have live coverage of the prime minister's question time when gordon brown takes questions from members of parliament. live coverage is at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span2. it is a nonprofit agency responsible for managing internet names and addresses. that is tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span2. >> former republican senator announced today he is running in the rhode island governor's race as an independent. the former senator lost his seat in 2006 to sheldon white house and quit the republican party. rep brown is 74-years old.

his district serves the coastal district from your car -- near charleston to the state line. congress is still on break, but many staff have returned to capitol hill. the house returns january 12th and you can see live coverage on c-span. the senate meets again on january 20th at with live coverage on c-span2. president obama and his family returned today from their homeland vacation. here they are after landing at the white house. president obama is meeting today with his homeland security adviser. this as new screening measures are put into effect for some people traveling to the united states from or through 14 different countries including yemen, nigeria, and saudi

arabia. the american foundation recently hosted a discussion about his first year in office which is about one hour and 45 minutes. >> i am going to introduce everyone and get out of the way ahead until the initial presentations have been made. i thought i would just to offer one quick frame. this was the many -- this was the brainchild to commission a series of essays assessing president obama's performance of -- in office. i think reading of the invitation it seems to have been fairly open ended. it would tend to comment on an foreign security. it is obviously an arbitrary choice to rate toto wait -- to

wait. if you think about the last three presidencies, in the autumn of their first year something happened to establish a pattern for the next two for the rest of their presidency. with clinton in october 1993 you had somalia and a decision to leave. then get to rwanda, kosovo and the second term. momentous lean with the george w. bush and george h. w. bush to have a 9/11 and the fall of the berlin wall and a pattern that was not easy to identify. -- that was easy. we are searching for a pattern

rather than reacting. that only the frame of the discussion today. i would take note that the lack of gender balance because i am sensitive to this issue. i would point out that the issue as a better performance than the random acceptances of our invitations. these two women could not make it even by telephone but their essays are in the magazine. some of you will note them quite well. immediately to my right, the henry a. kissinger senior fellow and a bed -- and a board member of the new american foundation. he is a distinguished fellow at yale. that is a big title. he writes regularly for "the new york times," "the l.a. times,"

and others. his most recent book is "god and gold." "american foreign policy and how it changed the world" receive the prize in 2002 and "god and gold" to him that last year or the year before. john is the albert milbank professor at princeton and the co-director of the princeton project on national security and has been a transatlantic fellow and has served on the policy planning staff of the state department and has written several books. richard is a resident fellow.

he was chairman of the defense policy board and assisted the secretary of defense during the reagan administration. stephen is the second of our telephone speakers is a professor of natural relations -- national relations. he has written six books and dozens of journal articles. he writes and publishes the political blog "the washington note," and appears regularly on television and radio.

he was the first executive director of the nixon center. will is the president and founder of the progressive policy institute which modernizes progressive politics for the local stage. they helped create many of the new democrat ideas for the clinton administration and influences and works with european parties as well. he is the co editor include " memos to the new president," and others. finally, ronald steel professor emeritus of international relations at the university of southern california. he has previously taught at

texas, dartmouth, rutgers, ucla, and princeton. he has a problem holding down a job. [laughter] he ended up in a good place. he has written in lots of other places, so really a terrific group. he is the editor for "the american interest" in a predecessor he was a staff member for the national security study group that the u.s. commission on national security which is the commission and an

aide to haig. he was at penn and has authered several books. welcome adam to get us started. [applause] >> i will not take up much time because i want to hear the discussion. i want to it express the magazine's gratitude for setting this out. we should do more of these co- sponsor ships in the future. what i was trying to do with the symposium -- there are 16 contributions. we have here seven or so present or on the phone. it is good that the representation i tried to evoke is a microcosm represented by the people we have.

i am sorry jessica and and could not pull their weight on this one. -- jessica and ann. i think it will be represented pretty well. that is what i was trying to do, really. there's nothing cerebral or special about what i did. i went to get a group of experienced and intelligent people to do the best they could in sizing up the first year. not to get lost in a particular subject, but to stand back and look at the intersection of politics and policy on a large scale. on the one hand and with domestic politics and policy on the other. but everyone did all of that, but most people took a stab at the right the local level to do it. i think we got a pretty interesting group of essays.

i didn't take a spoon or a knife to carve out a lot of overlap because there was not a large amount. various views, policies, attitudes all comes through. the personalities of the authors and i did not have to do much. i am grateful for that. we do these things from time to time in the american interests. i want to let you know one peculiarity. everyone involved with one exception is an american. i could have solicited views from people all over the world about what they thought obama's first year look like. that would have been ungainly and hard to control so i kept it just to americans. i went to mention t that about one year ago we put out an issue called "the global election"in a similar symposium.

what is the upcoming election in the united states mean for you? we had a 25-27 short pieces from all over the world none of whom was an american national. now we are balanced. thank you for coming. i will turn this over to steve to get us under way. >> all that is left for me to stay -- say is we're going to start with 5 minute statements by each of the participants and you are free to sit or stand and walter you are up. i take note of c-span's preference but feel a lot to be controlled. walter, your first. >> it is great to be here at the intersection of two of the real

interests in my life. i have been associated with the new america foundation really since it started. i very much enjoy being a member of the board and i am also on the executives editorial board of "the. american the" two of my obsessions have come together. -- "the american interest." have started a lbl -- blog pse i contributed was originally a blog post the villains from there. -- the piece i second -- piece i contributed. i wanted to talk about the intersection of history and

politics both foreign and domestic. president obama really invited us to do this and maybe more than he knew one year ago. as you recall, there were a lot of comparisons of president obama and president lincoln. i was nervous when i started hearing all of that is one of the things you notice about president lincoln if you go back and look at his record is he did not sally into washington talking about the comparisons between lincoln and george washington. if anything he was trying to keep expectations low rather than high. i think if there is one thing that president obama has been learning in his first year in office is that it is really hard to be president of the united states. [laughter] really. it is a nightmare of a job. american power is about two

contradictory things. on the one hand, we are a global, leading power and going for stability keeping the status pretty much quo. on the other hand, there is a dynamic, seating source of innovation and capitalist renewal -- dynamics seething. we heard the leading are still is -- the leading arsonists and are causing as much problems reading the internet than we are invading iraq. we are blowing up the status quo at the same time we're trying to defend it. the president of the united states is caught at the board tax of these conflicting pressures. -- the president is caught at the vortex. the biggest event since the issue came out is the conference

in copenhagen where you saw president obama having to wrestle with all these tensions. can you imagine the nerve it took to walk into closed-door sessions as the president blowing at diplomatic protocol, wrenching the copenhagen assembly out of its original approach and into something new and doing this not knowing if it was going to work. in the article, i wrote about an important moment for president obama and he would get to this one way or another. this would be in the summer of 1864 near the end of president lincoln's first term. he reelection campaign is going and it is not going well. in fact, he in of the political

experts in the country think he is going to lose. furthermore they think he is going to lose to general mcclellan who will not pursue lankan score policies in the civil war. lincoln, at that point, is living with the idea that he said hundreds of thousands of young men to their deaths for a failed war. he will be known as the president to failed to hold the union together. he is getting up every morning with that knowledge, living with a wife who was, frankly at times, psychotic living with the ghosts of two dead sons and the gnawing sense that maybe this will all fall apart. president obama is going to face times like this, i think. we live it in a very tumultuous. -- every small churros time in history. -- a very tumultuous time in

history. over the next three years we will see what he has made us, what kind of president he will be. the early signs are encouraging, but it is still one year into his term and it is too soon to sell. thank you very much. -- too soon to tell. [laughter] -- [applause] >> professor i. granbury, the floor and ceiling are both yours. >> greetings to my colleagues. i am sorry i cannot be there. my essay in the volume was focused on obama's emerging grand strategy and i tend to be bullish amongst those taking the view that obama's general global

orientation is on the right track given the very demanding international security environment. i start, as others do in their pieces, by noting that obama has inherited a daunting tangle of challenges. two wars, stalled peace talks, hostile states acquiring nuclear weapons, global financial crisis, a recession, rising public debt, and multi-polar challenges from china and russia. my argument is that faced with these tumultuous international environment, i would describe it as a set of threats that are

shifting and uncertain. the important question to ask is has the obama administration articulated a grand strategy that is responsive to these challenges? my answer is, i think so. yes, i think it has. in this environment the key task, which i think obama also seems to be articulating, is for the united states to put itself in the midst of building framers of sustained partnerships and collective act on many, many friends and in many ways. -- on many fronts. this might come to us in various combinations in the months ahead. i get the sense that this is obama's version. philosophically, or how obama is positioned intellectually in these various visions of grand

strategy, it seems to be that he is a moderate internationalist with a grand strategy built around both liberal and realist sensibilities. liberal in his orientation towards an engagement, multilateralism, and progress of trade. realist in his emphasis on power of restraint, accommodation, looking for ways with russia and china to work pragmatically despite differences. in this sense, the synthesis of moderate realism and liberal internationalism puts him squarely in the mainstream of postwar presidents who have worked with those it will ideas starting with truman that the size on multi laterals of great power and democratic community. -- starting with german that emphasize on multilateral.

first, i think he has in an unusual way articulated a clear and coherent vision of the united states security environment. as i read his speeches and going -- and actions, i see in each move and in each speech an emphasis on when he argues, and i think i would agree with, the master trend in world politics which is the rise of interdependence that increasingly more people in the more places doing more things matter to american security. they will work together on the effect on the environment in which the u.s. operates. the u.s. and other states have an agenda building frameworks

and rebuilding partnerships attending to security interdependence which means not just as it did during the cold war, there were thinking about deterrence but how lots of people doing lots of things help burn energy, provide a public health, treat minorities, abide by laws and treaties, all of these things matter more than they did in the past and the world -- and they will matter more tomorrow. this deep, relentless movement of rising security interdependence creates rising demand for cooperation that is extensive in spoke -- extensive in scope. as we look into the 21st century, we're going to have to do more of it in more places with more ways and work government and peoples. in this sense, i think obama gets it. his focus on revising, looking for cuts with russia on nuclear

stockpiles, plus the and this is on multilateralism -- and the focus on multilateralism. all of these are promising. in the early in. -- in the early time this is promising. the second strategic step i think obama has made is his in general read calibration of american global hegemonic position. i have argued in the past that the u.s., more than any of us really often appreciate, founded building the international system over the last half a century where it was really at the center. it was the linchpin in the constitutional order for the world. the u.s. played it matches their

role as a patron over rules and security partnerships, but it was itself fused with below -- with the larger one of governance system. it was a good deal for the u.s. and other parties. it continued after the cold war to the surprise of many people as the kind of core framework for global politics. the bush administration -- >> we need a quicker version because we have a lot to do. i cannot flip you a one minute. >> this is my final point. the bush and administration had, in effect, a constitutional crisis with other parties around the world and the obama administration has in the steps that are potentially symbolic is

a reestablishing kind of a constitutional bargaining with key parties around the world which will create a kind of stable framework in which the u.s. can pursue interests. for those two reasons i think the first glimmers of a grand strategic vision are very promising. story for carrying on. sorry. [applause] >> he did reasonably well. he was very articulate and stimulating. i am sure we will come back to it. next up is richard. >> thinking and good morning. -- thank you. recall the conversation with a friend commenting on some action by obama, i do not remember which. he said, i hope he knows what he is doing.

i say in my piece that i hope he does not. the reason why is that because there is a room yet for discovery and we might find a plan be. i hope we do because plan "a" is not working to. i have trouble finding the strategic vision that purpose for ikenberry just referred to. but i see instead is an attitude which puts an unreasonable exaggerated emphasis on the open hand of good will of reversing what, i believe, the president believes was the psychology of the bush administration. that open hand has not been received with an open hand by

our adversaries. one recalls the president with hugo chavez receiving in the banking -- and receiving and thanking him for a gift that was a diatribe. it becomes almost as obligatory which was received by rhetorical bashing of the president by iran -- iran. just yesterday, castro accused obama of lying. generosity with respect to putin and shutting down a missile defense program in poland and the czech republic largely because that is what he wanted. it was responded to by a russian

military maneuver a few days later that included a stimulated invasion of poland. i think we are often a pretty bad start when you get to the specifics. it seems to me that president obama has made a fetish out of a cliche. the cliche is engagement. obviously we talk to friends and adversaries. we talked to friends in hopes of encouraging them to support our goals and objectives. we talked adversaries in the hope that we will diminish the dangers that they opposed west. we did they pose to us. -- the dangers that day oppose to us. when you go repeatedly iran, which is proceeding and paste to

develop nuclear weapons which will support terrorism in a number of places and destabilize the middle eastern region, when you go repeatedly to iran, as it realizes its own citizens, you eventually begin to send a message being seen by others in the gulf. the message is we are prepared to accord them a position of power that iranian dissidents in the country's near i ran find dangerous -- near a run by endangers and concerning. i think the president does not understand that. if he had it would have been a far more disciplined approach to engagement.

they were scorned and revealed publicly and as a means of embarrassing the united states. walter referred to the arsonists. i think he had president bush in mind. sometimes fires are put out by setting deliver it fires. i am not an expert, but i think you set a fire sometimes to contain a fire in order to deprive the fire your hoping to contain of combustible material which would enable it to spread and expand. i am not against using fire to fight fire. whether it was right or wrong, what i believe president bush was attempting to do, so one can criticize the way it came out, or the judgments on which was based. the technique of using fire to

fight fire seems to be entirely appropriate and i hope that president obama discovers that in time. he referred to his grand strategy looking for ways to work with russia. i just referred to one of the ways in which she sought to work with russia by acquiescing the demands that we not proceed with the ballistic missile defense systems installations with two countries in eastern europe. i do not think that worked out very well. the focus of the administration's policy with russia has been antiquated. it is a focus on the arms control of the cold war. it no longer matters very much to this country how many nuclear

weapons russia has. my own view is we should be reducing our nuclear arsenal substantially beyond its current levels but we should do that unilaterally. there is no reason why our amending what we consider to be an optimum nuclear strategy should be held hostage to negotiations with russia. during the cold war, you had to do a different sort of calculation. it seems to me we are beyond the cold war and we have a diplomatic establishment that, in many ways, is mired in the cold war and the president reflects that. i hope he will have a plan "b>" -- b." he may be a glimmer of a plan from his remarks of receiving the nobel prize which were different than anything he has ever said before. it puts one in mind a little

bit of a jimmy carter's discovery after the soviet invasion of afghanistan that the world was a more difficult and harsher place than he had previously understood. i am encouraged to think that president obama may be discovering that sometimes force is necessary, sometimes you have to fight fire with fire, sometimes engagement is not feasible or cannot be effective. if we see more of this we will be the better for it. [applause] >> thank you. we turn to our second audio presentation. are you on the line? any information? ok, we will proceed to the next speaker.

>> can you hear me? >> is that you? >> great. you're five minutes is under way. >> the ritual is to say sorry i cannot be there, but i would rather be sitting in california as i am. [laughter] then we begin with two observations that are not really debatable. one is that obama's presidency is going to depend on domestic politics not on any successes he might have in the international arena. the second is that as recent as this year we have seen changes in the atmospherics but not substance. here is a fundamental issue which has not changed from the bush should ministration. there are some problems in international politics which are manageable but not soluble. the key issues that obama has to deal with our problems that he

cannot resolve. they could wreck his presidency but they're not going to save it. let me go over three of these quickly and end with one issue that some of our panelists alluded to which is run. -- which is iran. it is stunning to me that there are a leading american figures in and out of the administration that refer to pakistan as an ally. here is a country that has engaged in terrorism in india and afghanistan and has allowed the afghan taliban function within its borders and has not done very much to combat al qaeda operatives still working in pakistan. if we are thinking about what our policy towards pakistan actually is, the money we are giving to them is essentially a fee paid to the pakistani

military to allow us to conduct counter-terrorism near their borders. we should avoid the illusion where training there are mean will develop us allies. this is not a problem obama will solve regardless. somehow if obama tomorrow embraced richard perle is said he was right. second, if you look at the israeli-palestinian relations, they have come to the conclusion that force works. they tried negotiations. the left glove and on and got a kidnapping. they left gaza and got rockets. they went to the west bank, built a fence, and went to le banon.

the invasion in gazeahas resulted in a decline in rocket attacks. from israeli's point of view, force works. within the palestinian authority and between gaza and hamas, there's not anything the looks like a credible commitment. if you look at your career, the problem which has been unchanged regardless of whether we are negotiating or not is that the chinese are not willing to but the kind of pressure on north korea which would lead to the regime to change its policies because it could actually result with a collapse. regime collapsed in korea would be unmanageable and very difficult for china. finally, i want to end on one

issue which are treated differently in my piece and that is iran. if they get nuclear weapons it could be extremely problematic. iran would not have a second strike capabilities, so they might take ani israeli attack -- take an israeli attack. . .

one challenge is whether or not it gets russian and chinese cooperation in terms of bringing additional pressure on iran. this pressure could be sanctioned. that is obviously mentioned. there's also the possibility of a naval blockade. i think there is no real chance of a military attack from the united states or israel, but there are real possibilities for altering iranian policies. those possibilities will depend how adept the united states is in dealing with china and russia. up to now, the record does not look great, but if we are thinking about obama in terms of what he can do in crises where there is some flexibility, i would focus on iran. i think in other areas he is

basically stuck, regardless of whether or not he continues to embrace the general orientation he has displayed in the first year are moves to some other formulation or grand strategy for the united states, so i would focus on iran as a key possiblility, and i will let you take of these remarks. >> thank you, steve. steve is next to the microphone. >> thanks so much for being here, and happy holidays. i am pleased to see if he left us thinking about iran, because my original suggested title, as we sometimes suggest to editors , in greeting obama, only around matters. that was my suggested title, but i very much agree with what

steve laid out. let me start in a slightly different place, because i think in grading obama, and i find many aspects of barack obama mesmerizing and find the possibilities of both this training of challenges and his various messages to the international community very compelling, but when you look at what he inherited -- we might disagree. when he was quoted in "vanity fair" we had different ideas, and when you look at the task they inherit, both the economic portfolio was clearly in a crisis when barack obama came in, but also looking at the stock of power the united states had on the foreign-policy front, we're fairly miserable, and i would argue, of probably the worst in my memory among presidents coming in, and to some degree when you are a superpower and

engage the world morally or through ideas and institutions, you take the top three. we show ki limits economically by exporting toxic -- show limits economically by exporting topics products. to some degree, american leadership in the world became in doubt, so the idea of america as a superpower also look like a bubble. to some degree, obama himself became the bubble we replaced the housing bubble with. dan gross wrote a book called "pop" and it was about the benefits of novels and what they create an infrastructure. to some degree -- the benefit -- of bubbles and what they create in infrastructure. it gives us a chance to

reinvent to some degree american leverage, because what i see is obama's key challenge, which he has not convinced the world yet, despite what might become an with health care, although there's a lot of consternation about what might be coming. obama has not yet convinced the world or american citizens that our nation can achieve the goals it set for itself. this is what translates into power -- not platitudes but actually delivering key results. just before the inauguration, i saw romney manuel and congratulated him. -- and rahm emanuel and congratulated him. i think the heavy lifting was going to be limited, and i think they did a wonderful job changing global optics, and i am the one who argued the for that alone, obama should be given the

nobel prize, the substance would or could come later, even though that was clearly an important, but changing realities of global order and changing the way historic not -- history of global order is changing -- is seen, that means you have the ability to recreate american leverage, and the administration not only picked the finding challenges for itself, so iran, israel, palestine, but of those, iran in terms of everything else you look that seems to be the highest national security priorities through which all other lenses needed to be viewed, and this is when i go into the pieces -- as the liggett to some degree moving the rush of course and china and -- as i look at to some degree moving the russia of course and shine a course in a different direction, they might be less destructive -- and china course in a different direction, they

might be less destructive. that is trying to shape the global order to decrease iran's ability to divide great powers around the world. pushing for an israeli- palestinian peace deal is not in itself important to me. israel palestine matters in the sense that it gives you a pathway for word to possibly look get some soft normalization between arab states and israel, and that is vital because it robbed iran of the ability to both declare itself as a real defender of the islamic faith and it robs them of territory, so when you looked at those pieces, i believe on some level, barack obama those cds moving pieces in trying to move a geopolitical system in that direction -- obama does see those moving pieces in trying to move a gigolo -- geopolitical system in that direction. i think ultimately they have failed.

i do want to say quickly that it is not just froze -- foes and animated by a perceived american weakness. it is allies, too. when i look and the fact that germany, saudi arabia, israel, all key partners with the united states, have each rebuffed this administration, whether on economic policy, national security policy, being part of a new game plan in the middle east -- i think these are red as a measure the united states has -- does not succeed, then you would not see ellis be paved the way they are. finally, -- would not see allies be paved the way they are. finally, on settlements, i thought it was too narrow a window to go forward. it would remove the ability to have latitude. once the decision was made, you

could not as president of the united states afford to lose, and unwittingly or consequently, the failure of barack obama to see the battle through, which ended up being a contest, turned an ally into the khrushchev of this administration, the finding doesn't limits of the united states -- finding the limits of the united states, and the united states has to find its way out of that box. i agree iran is what most matters, and when we come back a year from now, we will see whether or not the united states has made any progress on that front or not, and if not, the world would be sensing we are in serious economic decline. thank you. [applause] >> will marshall, you are up next.

>> thank you very much, adam, and steve. i also want to thank my panelists for leaving me domestic policy to cover in five minutes. i will not be able to do it, but if you're hooked out. i will try to talk about things we of not talked about about how barack obama is judged and how he would like to be judge, because he told a bunch of colonists that he views his historic mission as domestic renewal of the united states. we focus on lawful inheritance dump on his lap. i am really impressed by his ambition 3 and he has set in motion big changes across a spectrum of impasses in american political life, and just as high divers get extra credit for complicated dives, i think this president deserves extra credit

for the degree of difficulty of what he has taken on, although he has to make the dive. the fact that he is not diving any of the topics exactly -- criticism one hears more often is he is taking them on of once. the defuses energy and burns political capital, but the big question for me now is whether his governing capacity will match the audacity of his words, and i have to read it at this point, the words to deeds ratio is leaning towards words, but there is one undeniable accomplishment, and that is the way this administration moved decisively in the first couple months to stop the first economic free flow and stabilize the financial markets and the banking sector. no president since 1931 has faced such a big economic picture as barack obama did.

remember in the first quarter of this year, real gdp fell by 6.4%. two quarters later we have got modest growth. the stimulus package raised third quarter gdp from 1% 0.23% -- to 3%, but more i think it was stopping the panic that was widespread one year began. he got an enormous boost from an open hand and said. it does seem to me that -- and openhanded said, but it does seem to me that he did it also without succumbing to any of the feverish theological -- ideas coming from his side. he did not have to develop a new model of capitalism overnight,

so i think he kept his head when others were not keeping fares. we still face an enormous job crisis that is going to be a big issue as we head into the midterm election. we have large deficits. the bill and has sparked a populist reaction, a strong anti-government kind of populism that has to be dealt with, but now i say the one -- now i think the worst is averted. we stand on the brink of another accomplishment, and that is landmark health-care reform, family dealing with the glaring inequity and american civic life -- the fact that many citizens could not get basic health care and were vulnerable to injuries and diseases, and i think that is a big gain for obama and his party, but i am not a huge fan of this bill.

it is barely a sensible in many ways. it does reform insurance markets, but it is weak on cost control, witches a long term good region which is a long term good that has to happen. we have got to reduce cost inflation to deal with fiscal problems. looking at how we had to buy 60 votes, there is no question if president obama wins, it will be ugly, but i think and this dysfunctional political system, getting any kind of thing done of this scale is an achievement. the health-care debate highlighted the great political challenges facing this president. i believed he began as post- partisan. i think he really wanted to push beyond the toxic partisanship in washington. i have to say i do not think the other party gave him a fighting chance to do it three good i think it has wandered into

radiological fever swamps. the only thing that matters really happens of the progressive end of the spectrum, and obama's great political challenge going forward -- we saw it in health care, and we will see it in regulatory reform and afghanistan, it is finessing philosophical cleavages within his own coalition and the left. in my judgment, this president has ceded a lot of power to congress to shape his main initiatives, whether it is the stimulus bill or the health bill. it may be given the divisions he really did not have much of a choice, and a stronger effort to impose a more coherent policy would have cracked his coalition, so one big question is whether a big win on health care will reflect it -- replenish his capital.

that remains to be seen. my guess is the senate's of a tight -- appetite for big division is exhausted. we're not going to see big movement on climate change or other tough issues, but this does have to do with the jobs and fiscal responsibility. a huge challenge for him, which i think will be defining for this presidency, will happen not next year but in the year that follows as the economy recovers is how we go from spending like drunken sailors to a policy of fiscal retrenchment, which this country has got to do. otherwise, mountainous public debt is going to diminish our economic sovereignty, and so somehow this president has to encourage more stimulative measures next year, a fiscal exit strategy that shows how we can get a handle on unsustainable entitlements plus

growth was the trillion dollar deficit we're looking out for the rest of the decade. lastly, i think the biggest challenge facing barack obama and his party is afghanistan. i would not put iran in the soluble category, so i did not think it is fair to judge him, as he does no better than his predecessors in making them less hegemonic in ambitions, but afghanistan who -- he has to succeed in this policy, and he is -- he and his party are going to be judged on this. democrats only recently got the monkey off their back of being a party that couldn't be trusted to manage the nation's security, and we cannot afford to fail. this president is in a vicarious -- precarious

position of conducting a war potentially with more republican support than democratic support. this is a tough position for a democratic president to be in, but he must have strategics? not in a long struggle to succeed in our goals in afghanistan and the long struggle against radical islam to convince the public that democrats can govern this country, and that leads me to my last point, which is this president has an amazing opportunity, a once-in-a- lifetime, to consolidate a new governing majority to affect the political realignment when we have not seen since the last one with nixon and reagan of the late 1960's. he has to govern effectively, which brings us to find a way forward. so far he is doing well on that, but it is forging a link

between domestic reform ambitions and its willingness to defend american interests and to advance american values, liberal democratic values around the world but is missing. the democratic party has been missing this link between vision for too long, and i think one of the principal challenges is to restore it. [applause] >> i want to share with you some leadership. obama is a rare thing in politics -- an inspirational figure. this is traumatized by the passion of his campaign --

dramatized by the passion of his campaign. the main part was ho. -- hope. there was no performance, so we had to believe, and i think the decision to reward him a nobel was made for the same reasons, but he would do something very dramatic and resolved issues of war and peace. this notion of promises not unique in american politics. reagan had this. front and roosevelt had this. -- franklin roosevelt had this. it also contributed greatly to their success. jimmy carter did not have it.

the two bushes did not have it. expectations were lower. obama inherited an economy collapsing from capitalist greed and the failure of public regulation. he did it by securing the fortunes of those who caused the disaster but never explained adequately to the public why this was necessary. there's enormous anger as a result of the federal bailout. franklin roosevelt by contrast denounced what he called the malefactors of privilege. he was not afraid to do so. he did not want to be universally loved, and he was not. i think the result is a flood of populist anger, fuelled by those seeking to directed away from the perpetrators to the victims of the inheritors. on the issue of his presidency

in after that is health care, to offer americans a security, offered as a given to people in economically advanced states, but he never explained to the public how it would work and why it was essential. he pointed off to congress. i think it was a terrible mistake that resulted in a bill that was not as good as he would have liked, and i think that was precisely because of his lack of involvement. he did not explain why it would work or why it was essential. he did not do as fdr did in pushing through the social security program, which americans now as soon as a birthright. what he did was gently offer but never aggressively sold. you have congress deciding what

the health care should be and the strategy for achieving it, which is rather like letting generals decide what objective should be an strategy should be in afghanistan. that is not a role for generals. generals are supposed to carry out political policy in this country, but i think that is what he as don -- he has done in both cases. let's compare a situation, harry truman in correa 60 years ago -- in korea 60 years ago, when confronted with generals who had their own policies, fired macarthur, faced the ire of the republican congress. this is a country where, as truman said, the buck stops here. i think obama has too often allows special interest groups

to compromise and sabotage his agenda. he invoked the mantra of change. he is constantly invoking the mantra of change, but too often he is offered hope, and hope is a thin gruel in which public can prosper. in foreign policy, he is following in the george bush's footsteps by being bogged down by two tribal wars, which he has never been able to adequately explain to the public, except under this vague category of combating terrorism. he is head of an alliance, nato, with no enemies. behind that shield, europe and sold to russia and the post cold war embraced dominated by german economic power. asia is entering a post-american

future. the rise of china and france japan and india -- confronts japan and india, and then the u.s. is gone down in tribal wars in afghanistan and pushed to the sidelines. i think the events in this area are slipping out of american control, and to some degree, even american influence. obama is in danger of losing control of his own party, as we saw with the compromises entailed. i think it is likely to spread to foreign policy as well, because the rationale for his policy is unpersuasive. in fact, the strategy is possible only because it relies

on mercenaries and the volunteer army. the draft would trigger a popular revolt there for the public is able to associate itself -- and therefore the public is able to associate itself. either the work is not essential for security, or the public has to be engaged in it. obama has great charisma, but charisma as a declining asset unless it is renewed by accomplishment. obama has gloriously fulfilled our lowest expectations come up but to be the fdr of this generation, -- arliss expectations, but to the fdr of this generation, he has to be as tough as he is inspiring, and he must learn that charisma by tuesday's -- charisma, like beauty, inevitably fades, and

then the hard task of persuasion begins. thank you. [applause] >> thank you all very much, and thank you, adam, for putting together such a diverse group. a very interesting portfolio. a lot of internal diversity of view, both about what has and has not been accomplished this year. i thought i would use my time to do a couple of things -- 1, ask a little bit about some subjects that were not addressed, and secondly, to give people who are here with us, because we're only going to conduct the discussion portion to respond to each other a little bit. on the subject of what was not discussed, i am trying to put myself in a position of a ph.d. candidate listening to this

panel, and following in global affairs of the united states very closely, and there were a couple of volitions to the economic crisis, but when you think back to the beginning of obama's residency and the sense of free-fall the global economy was in and the sense of uncertainty that surrounded the first couple of months of his presidency -- equity prices hitting a low in march, no bottom available, and the narrative was of extraordinarily independent crisis, but i want to get to the narrative of response of the crisis, which involved the birth of the g-20 as the preeminent economic shape of the emerging world, and i reflect as well on the scene at copenhagen one of you referred to were the president bursts into the room, but who is in the room? brazil, india, china. what is the narrative of this

new global power range? does the president have a vision of a world that is detectable, and secondly, looking forward to the end of his first term, what is it reasonable to ask of this president in shaping this post american world -- to use another phrase present at the start of his inauguration. the one to take another pass at this? >> -- do you want to take another pass at this? >> i would say first i am not sure it is a post-american world. for me one of the lessons of copenhagen was that madeleine albright's phrase still holds. we are an indispensable nation. we do not get a lot done, but nothing happens on some of these global issues. i think for example in asia we tend to -- i thought the coverage of obama's relations with asia was terrible in that

how little coverage there was to the fact that right after he came back from asia, the prime minister of india came to the white house for a state visit, and obama actually is effectively in searching the united states into asian politics -- in searching the united states into asian politics or recognizing the degree to which they turn to the united states for leverage and balance. i think we're seeing a continuation of bush -- a shift of the center of gravity in american foreign policy away from europe and with other parts of the world, and if the 20th century was the century of the of land in world politics, the 21st century looks like the pacific with may be the indian -- century of the atlantic in world politics, the 21st century looks like the pacific with

maybe the indian ocean thrown in. personally, i think the chances are this will tend to reinforce a unique american role in the world, but of a different kind and with a different set of relations. >> richard, if you except the promise of a specific or indian ocean century, -- if you accept the premise of an indian ocean century, what do you think in terms of inserting american interesting to that new balance? >> i am not sure we are going to see a shift as dramatic as implied. it remains the case that our diplomatic establishment is overwhelmingly oriented toward europe. that is where most of our diplomatic activity takes place. that is where most of our interactions take place.

it is where are important alliance is. my impression of obama's visit to asia is the japanese portion was described as the japanese themselves as the worst visit ever by an american president to japan. i did not see a strategy. a juror and the state visit to india makes perfect sense -- a state visit to india makes perfect sense, but there do not see strategy behind that. what can he do? clearly, we have to reassure those allies likely to be intimidated by the rising -- rapid rise of china. we have to do a better job of dealing with north korea, and i think there are options that would entail mobilizing the chinese to be more helpful than they have been.

i am sure it is right the chinese do not want to see a collapse of the north korean regime, but they are also in a position to insist on at least external behavior. they have not been motivated to do so, and motivating them to do so is a challenge for obama. bush felt in this regard. -- failed in this regard. maybe obama will be recognizing that an alliance with india is almost certainly in strategic benefit of both countries. he has got a problem with taiwan, where i hope he will continue to take what has become the recent history of american administration, insisting this dispute be

resolved peacefully, and i think it is a month -- in the process of being resolved by the emerging economic relationship between china and taiwan >> that is helpful. as we complete this section and turn to a sense of back-and- forth responding to each other's remarks, let me ask you to offer some comments about this asia strategy. first, the president of obama have an asian strategy? second, how do you judge the first round, both hillary clinton's asia tour and president obama's own. secondly, i think one of the ways in the reasonable panel would judge the performance of a president in international affairs would be to ask what might he accomplished in these difficult portfolios that he failed to accomplish, or what did he accomplish that another president might have this --

might have missed? he said president obama came in having made a fetish of a cliche of engagement, and because of this over emphasis, symbolically with consequences and practically in the case of missile defense in europe, he essentially got rolled into the argument. the u.s. accept that criticism, and if not, -- do you except that criticism, and if not, what is the evidence of tactical achievement that another president less willing to extend an open hand might not have seized? if that is not enough to have digested. >> in part, as a friendly critique of my friend will marshall, there was this a joke -- it is actually a true story. i went to china and met with the guys running policy of foreign

affairs, and i said what are you working on? they said we are trying to keep you distracted. meaning, our destruction had created such a smorgasbord for china -- distraction had created such a smorgasbord for china that just reversing that -- we talk about the optics of barack obama putting a lot of mileage on air force one and going to africa and asean had a benefit because it demonstrates we are back. with the fundamental view among southeast asian nations and japan and korea did during the bush administration the cabinet level disengage, and it was not a fundamental priority. when various architectural problems were coming of the region, we were not perceive to be a player. one of obama's objectives just by going there and receiving the prime minister of japan, hillary

clinton making her a visit to japan was to demonstrate we are not going to make the choice between japan's interests and our complex relationship with china. we are going to simultaneously manage them. we are going to be embedded within the discussion on broader architecture in the region. barack obama declared himself as the first pacific president. whether or not that is true, we the day. when they rekindled this -- does is a matter more to you then europeans -- does asia matter more to you than europeans? has this benefited -- could another president have achieved something he might not? it is a complex challenge, because in my view, you have the historic change of leadership in japan -- a nation i think has put aside what i thought was a growing kind of dark

nationalism in japan and replace it with the possibility of a negotiated nationalism in japan. the party running japan today does not have much experience doing so and has picked various ornaments it wants to use as ways to demonstrate change. one of them is the air station where the united states maintains 39 military installations, and in my view, we are running the risk of not getting ahead of history and seeing the entire u.s.-japan relationship getting caught up in a nasty fight where if we scratch beneath the surface is routed between a lot of resentment and it was ignited by the rape of a 12-year-old girl 53 americans. there is some dark stuff coming out, and we run the risk of a broader strategic plans to get sucked down that way. obama has shown himself on schooled enough to get overhead

of it. -- un-schooled enough to get ahead of it. and by offending chinese sensibilities at the olympics to try to make a point of our four, in my view, you raise the cost of chinese -- in dar for -- darfur you raise the cost of china. when think obama should get credit for is working with the chinese region one thing obama should get credit for is working with the chinese. the chinese stimulus package was enormously significant, and we work together in a lot of keyways, and i think we ensured the economic system we were not going to divorce each other in that process. that was the stabilization mechanism. if you achieve that mutually --

if iran is what matters, north korea is what matters, are you able to have other kinds of leverage were china is actually doing anything to help achieve your top priorities? i think obama and his team are siloing off too many problems from each other and are not playing well enough to demonstrate a facility to move simultaneously as they need to do, and i do think it is possible. i think george bush's father fought on these terms. i think george bush was trying to do that at the end of his administration. to some degree i am synthetic of this notion i hear from our readers -- you're not giving obama a enough time. that is kind of baloney. if you look at the first year of every president since dwight eisenhower, each either had some left curve thrown at them or they may decisive decisions

early in their administration that shape it that the notion barack obama has not had enough time the first year does not stand the scrutiny of other presidencies. i want him to do well. i really want barack obama to do well. i think other presidents have a greater sense of strategic payoffs if they invest in down sides. >> let's come home before return to the audience into will and maybe think about the implications of between his remarks and those of professor steele. will, you observed a lot of ambition in the president's domestic agenda but more words than accomplishment so far. let's assume we get to the state of the union on february 1 and health care reform dead husks --

that has changed the structure of the insurance argument has been enacted and he is coming forward to celebrate what he will regard as a historic achievement in social policy. at that stage, does dr. steele's criticism that he does not have the toughness, the sense of vision, the sense of direction of roosevelt havd change in your view? what do you think would be reasonable to expect of this president? >> i tried to say the same thing in maybe a slightly gentler way. i think this presidency has ceded too much authority to congress to shape the main legislative packages he has pushed and has not imposed the distinctive obama vision on them or much less policy coherence of

any time, but i also say he is facing a difficult problem. i think the fundamental issue of barack obama or any leading politician faces is not the economy, afghanistan, or iraq her give it is broken politics. the american people do not think the politics works for them. they did not trust washington. their trust in obama is plunging. somebody has got to make this democracy work, so if he can get a health care bill through, and it will not take effect for years, so you're not going to see any impact from it, but it is an accomplishment. it is showing that somehow out of the chaos, he could get something large done. i think that might make people more confident about what else he can achieve, and it is going to modestly restore capital. i do not want to overstate that.

the senate is not going to want to go to the next divisive issue, which is climate change and talk about, let's talk about raising the cost of fuels. i do not see that happening. i agree with the underlying point, which is that so far this has been a president that is almost passive. he has been willing to lay out broad goals and led his party take rains, and the results are not beautiful, but the fundamental question is, compared to what? had he tried to lay out the template for health-care reform in the beginning, my guess is it would look nothing like what we ended up here whiff. >> to extend will's remarks, in mentioning david axelrod at the podium speaking on behalf of the

president and health care reform, wouldn't the narrative sound like -- we have been waiting since the 1965 s to extend this horrid agenda of the democratic party. -- since the 1965 to extend this agenda of the democratic party. -- 1960's to extend this agenda of the dinner party. we have been working to extend this agenda. it was incumbent upon this president to bring the deal home, and that is fundamentally what he has done, so if that is the argument in favor of the president's achievement, presuming it comes in in the next four or five weeks, is it really fair to criticize him the way you did in your remark? >> it is fair, because he did not bring the public with him. there is enormous outcry of anger and disappointment and alienation. for him to say i brought it through, nobody else has done

this, is not an answer. it does not satisfy those who say, you brought an answer that was not my problem. that is the case for many people who have insurance, you did not persuade me the cost of this was not going to be detrimental to my interests. what happened is he has been absent from the debate. he may be pulling the strings behind the scene, but then we have people we have never heard of like the senator from nebraska becoming a key figure in the health-care debate over relatively petty issues. i think there is a sense that the public feels that decisions are being made that ignore their interests. they have not been persuaded by

the president in a way in which it works for them, and the danger is a result of a sense of exclusion, -- the anger is a result of a sense of exclusion, so instead of saying we did these things, we the american public have to change the system because so many of us are suffering from it, it is rather that he is saying, you senators, nancy reed, harry reid, now you were good deal with your colleagues. the congress does not -- now you work a deal with your colleagues. the commerce does not have much respect anyway. they are always suspected of killing against -- going to the public cost debt german. it is up to him to be the spokesman for the public preakness -- going to the

public's detriment. it is up to him to be a spokesman for the public. >> i agree that obama has not appealed over the heads of congress to the constituency that helped elect him very effectively, which is a big surprise for me. you know it is immutable. public opinion is strongly in favor of health care reform when we started out, and if we get something that looks like a success, my guess is it is going to go back up. if it is like the iraq war, americans were story before they were against it. i think you're going to see -- war for its before they were against it. i think you are going to see a correction. >> i think it will become the poster boy for a profound disappointment to the way the public's business it's done, and all the details are not known, but the managers bill introduced by harry reid in

which hundreds of aspects of legislation were changed, in many cases to accommodate the buyoff of individual senators and individual appropriations is -- when it is fully reported, going to be profoundly disappointing. it was not the way to deal with an issue of this magnitude health care is too important for that kind of legislative treatment, and i think obama is going to pay a price for that. >> in terms of mutability of public opinion, it is interesting to see that right now, both the surge in afghanistan and the war in iraq are more popular in some ways than health care. that is a higher percentage of the population thinks the war in iraq was a success than supports the current health care package. when a large domestic welfare

program is less popular than inconclusive foreign wars, you are not managing your portfolio well, what ever else can be said about what is going on here. i think there is a problem. will may be right. once there is something to see, people will start liking it more and start seeing some benefits, although that will not come very quickly. right now, it is bad. there is no way to avoid that. >> the president has established this pattern with difficult policy processes as in afghanistan of waiting until the end to come in with a hail mary speech to tie -- tried to clarify what he has accomplished, and in this case i did not need the speech was accomplished. let's turn to the audience.

please identify yourself and ask assisted question. -- a quick question. >> about a week ago you graded the administration. on israel palestine you gave them of d, and he said the only reason you did not give them an f is because there's still time. what does this say about the decision making process that it has done so badly and how to prevent it to be an f in succeeding years? >> since he got upon b-overall, it does suggest his decision making progress may be different. his big mistake was that he asked if israel to give him

something he had no way to make them give if they did not want to. once he put the out there in public. he said, i am going to be different from those other presidents. , then he fails to achieve it. then the arabs say, we do not have to do anything now. they are not doing what they were asked to do. now he is in this awful position of saying, they have not done when everything i wanted, but it sure looks nice. it is a bad situation, and it is

entirely self-created. there was no subject of force making him structure it this way. in fact, -- no subjective force making him structure it this way. in fact, had he set this up in the beginning, this could have looked more like a win than a loss, but he has created a difficult situation for himself. i do not think there is an immediate way out, but in the middle east, won the event is always followed by another, -- 1 yvette is always followed by another, and there are some opportunities going forward -- one event is always followed by another, and there are some opportunities going forward. maybe he will not listen with such trust the next time around. >> i am looking for some gender balance. come on. all right, i will go to this gentleman.

[applause] >> talk about self-created problems here. >> compared to a president like harry truman or george herbert walker bush, president obama seems narcissistic. is narcissism of political vulnerability, and how does a president who appears narcissistic harness that? >> there is an interesting book many journalists revile. if you read that book, you're really looking at as close to an

essential biography of barack obama as you can get, and what is fascinating is how he looks at these issues. it is interesting as a metaphor. in terms of what animates this man and his attention, i think you have seen it over and over again. there are cases where he grows distracted and is interested in things that have been delegated. -he can walk in like michael jordan at the last moment and change the game and make himself the deliver of an outcome. the attorneys were trying to evade him, and he broke in and change the game and got this deal, and its perfectly fits the

narrative of obama saving the day of what would have been complete disaster. i do not want to get into great detail, but i noticed a cuba policy were even of the two or three days of to the summit of the americas, the former ambassador of new mexico was essentially delivering the new conservative line on latin america. there was no evidence at all. when he got the portfolio, a 180 degree shift, so this is interesting that you set up challenges, that you have got to be losing terribly to get his attention. when you do lose his attention, there is a need to fundamentally change the dynamics, and when you get those successes, to show that narrative. >> i judge that as adequate response to the narcissism question.

>> i wanted to pick up on iran in a little bit. john bolton said a while ago we cannot stop iran at this point from getting the bomb if they want one. regardless of whether that is their intention or not, aren't we setting ourselves up for failure to say our goal is to stop this enrichment program in its tracks, when the rest of the world may think it is coming to terms with the idea that we are going to have to contain iran or something like that is going to happen, and here is the united states saying we want to continue the bush policy that iran has to stop its enrichment policy, so why not change the policy and say we will allow iran to enrich uranium under these terms, or otherwise we're setting ourselves up for failure, and that is why i think

it is wrong. if you make the test something you can achieve, of course you are going to 10 f -- to get an f. >> obviously, you're going to achieve something. i do not believe the seventh -- the scenario with iran -- >> what is achievable? >> what i think is achievable is changing the environment around iran within the middle east and states like india, china, and russia to essentially both robbed it of running room to spread its influence through transnational networks, but then to offer what i think obama wanted, which is a constructive course. i am not a believer in the hillary clinton style of diplomacy at the moment, because it did not think the united states has the wherewithal to achieve that, but i do not think we have put on the table a strategy with iran that will

change the direction. the sanctions policy is not going to dissuade iran. it becomes an emotional holding place for our fears and ambitions, not something that will be efficacious in moving directions. >> richard, what do you think is achievable, and if you recall, the professor referred to a series of ratcheting coercive kesse stopping short of military attack that he thought would achieve something. what is your view of what is achievable and the means to get there? >> i think everything must be put in context with the turbulence of iraq following the election. there is massive discontent with the ahmadinejad administration, and it goes beyond. i think if you could do a real puloll, you would find that

support for the islamic republic of iran is way below half. . >> does that imply a case for pressure on the regime?

>> i concrete example. there is some legislation making its way through congress, talk about trying to limit the importation of refined petroleum product into a ran. roughly half of the gasoline it goes into iranian cars and trucks every day is imported, and there are only four refineries in iran. a disastrous accident at one of those refineries and a cut in sales could bring iran essentially to a whole. and when you get very unhappy citizens lining up for hours to get 10 leaders rationed into their tanks -- tan lee tours --

10 liters crash into their tanks. bubblers the think that aids popular resistance or revolt against the iran and republic? or would only reinforce the revolutionary guard nader -- narrative of siege and conspiracy that they used to justify their grip on power? >> this is one of those wonderful questions that you have to get an answer to when you do not know the answer. barack obama will have to decide between these two course of evidence with lots more people telling them that each one is a disaster or each one will work. this is one of the reason president's age pretty quickly in office. but there's one more fat to bring on board. there are other countries in the middle east with the concern about the iranian nuclear

program. the president may not have a completely false and -- full hand in that israel could launch some sort of strike on its own. it might wellçó be that the iranians would assume that that had u.s. complicity whether it did or did not. or in any case, they might lash out against american interests in response in a way that would be very difficult to get a response back. the president has to think about that he is not an fully control -- fully in control of all the factors. the other thing i think that it's important to keep on board is that if the president were now to about that he has given up the intent to stop iranian progress toward a nuclear weapon, this would be a

spectacularly on pork -- on popular decision. a last time i looked, 61% of the people polled said that they favored military action against the iranian nuclear program. would they still support you nine months into your military act against iran? nevertheless, one of the reasons that all policy of relaxing and learning to live with an iranian bomb has not been allowed by the and ministration just because you cannot in american politics. -- has not been avowed by the administration just because you cannot do that in american politics. that may actually be where the administration sits right now. again, residents earn their

paychecks. >> we have reached the 2:00 hour. and i think that that is an excellent place to conclude. thank you. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2009] >> to not on the communicators, the president of the internet corporation for assigned names and numbers. it is a non-profit agency responsible for managing internet names and addresses. and knighted 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span2. >> there's still time to enter

c-span's 2010 studentcam contest. $50,000 in prizes for middle and high school students -- top prize, $5,000. just create a five to eight minute video on one of our country's greatest strengths or a challenge the country is facing. it must incorporate c-span programming and show varying points of view. deadline -- january 20th. winning entries will be shown on c-span. >> now, climate change lobbying. american university is hosting discussions this week on what being professionals. they explain to students of what is involved in wobbling. this portion is just under an hour.

>> our topic is how we lobbied for and against the climate change bill and the congress. we have a terrific person to deal with this, dan weiss. he has a background in climate change policy. he comes from the center for american progress, the progressive side of the issue on this important climate advocacy issue before the senate. dan has been senior fellow and director of climate strategy at cap. before that, he was a chief strategist and lobbyist for the

issues like the clean air act and the clean water act, the food safety act, he -- and he served for 16 years at the sierra club. he knows about the topic of using paid media and climate advocacy media, but he also knows the details about the cap- and-trade bill that passed by house and is pending in the senate and will be on the agenda of the senate, i think, after the healthcare bill. he therefore no strategy in buying media and he knows the details of this bill -- he knows the strategy in buying media. >> it is an honored to be upper speaker of this decade. -- the first speaker in this decade. you can buy your souvenirs' in

the lobby afterward. if you could do me a favor and give me a five-minute time limit, that would be great. good morning and happy new year, happy new decade. it is always great to be the first person speaking. one year i spoke at the last speaker at 2:00 on new year's eve day. that was very challenging. i'm going to talk about using paid media as a tool in advocacy campaigns. record to talk about the two types of strategy for advocacy campaigns, the purposes use media for, the key elements of an advertising and paid media campaign, the factors that help people in your campaign, -- help you plan your campaign, maximize the effect of your advertising, and some limits on issue advertising if you decide to go that route. it is also important to note i

will not speak about online advertising, which is a different creature, and requires someone under the age of 40 to talk to you about. they're having someone talk to them about online advertising separately? you can get that information elsewhere. if you ask me a question about that, i will try to make some noise. my colleague -- >> a distinguished alumni of american university. >> and what a lot of hard work, you can end up working at the center for american progress. we're going to talk about the two types of strategy for lobbying congress that are not mutually exclusive. they are both highly technical term so i want judicature pens and papers out and remember these terms. first is the inside game. you got that? ñrinside game.

an sec it is -- does anyone have a guess? outside game. excellent. have you sat through this before? there is the inside game and the outside game. and remember, you can do both together. the inside game is tools of private persuasion. it is when you send someone to talk to the center and the person is a big executive from the state. or you send in the head of the afl-cio to talk to buy -- to a representative. those are private persuasion to rid our you go talk to staff. those are direct contact with either the decision maker or the staff. optimally, is best in my new -- it is best in my view for micro issues. for example, if you're trying to

get a provision into a tax bill, the benefits for several companies using the inside game, going to talk to the center or her staff quietly is probably the most effective way to do it. the best lobbyist that do this are former members of the body, former senators or representatives, or they're very senior staff. for example, trent lott, the former senator from mississippi, make sure that he retired from the senate -- he actually resigned midterm -- in order to make sure that he only had a one-year ban on lobbying congress rather than dtw-year ban that was going to kick in. -- that two-year ban that was going to kick in. the key element of the inside game, to make it work, are two things. direct access to the decision

maker -- the senator, representative, or the senior staff. and second, some sort of relationship to the district or state that the person is from. the latter is not always required but it is very helpful. for example, if you're the president of ford motor co., it is relatively easy for you to go talk to one of the senators from michigan. ford is headquartered in michigan did it easy to talk to senators to say that they want some tax break. that is the way to make it happen. and so those are the things that make the inside game work well. for the outside game, it really relies on using tools of public persuasion. it works best for macro, big picture issues. a good example is that of the upcoming debate on the clean energy and global warming.

this is a macro issue that will affect a large part of the american economy. it will affect a large number of american firms, american workers, american consumers, and it is a big picture, macro issue. undoubtedly, there is going to be a lot of inside game played there as well, particularly on the side of those who are trying to stop the bill. see, the public based on opinion polls supports clean energy reform. if you are a company that is that -- if you are a company that is against it, you may not want to trumpet that you are trying to thwart the public will. instead, you try to play the inside game. but you may play the outside game because this is such a big issue. the outside game winds itself very well to a certain kind of issue that is different from cap-and-trade, issues in my

view that do not really have a corporate or economic interests. a good example of that are gun- control or abortion. those are ones that do not have economic interests at play that are more cultural and appeal to people's values. those of the kinds of issues that lend themselves to the outside game. but there are also economic issues like health care, why global warming, that also lend themselves to the outside game. it also helps when you're playing that outside game to get the public to be generally on your side. an issue like global warming, if you watch tv or read the newspapers, you have probably seen ads from energy special interest talking about how many jobs are being lost or how much gasoline is going to cost if we act on global warming. those people do not really have the public on their side. they are using -- they are

painting at a slightly different way. but for advocates, they are using paid media to take public opinion they know is on their side and increase its intensity. we will talk more about this in just a minute. you've got the inside game, tools of private persuasion, and the outside game, going out to the public in talking to them directly through paid advertising in the media. now there are several ways that you can use paid media in your issue campaign. babied is a communications tool that can be used to and form -- paid media can be used to inform, persuade, raised his ability, thank, or hold accountable. -- raise visibility, thank, or hold accountable. for example, running issue eds on global warming on cnn or fox

are msnbc and the washington-dc metro area is a way to emphasizing the seeming importance of the issue. if you are running an ad on cnn and the washington market, there are not too many swing members of congress there. but it does raise the visibility of the issue to the congress people and their staff who often have cnn running all the time in their office. or to take ads began outlets like the "roll call" or "or congressional quarterly," is a way of raising the visibility of the issue. members of congress get bombarded with dozens of members about dozens of issues. the ones that they see paid advertising about, it raises the visibility to them. come on them.

-- come on in. in addition, you can use paid ads and outlets like "will call" as a way of communicating substantive information, most likely to congressional staff, but also to the other media that is covering the topic. and also, sometimes to the decision makers themselves. when i was doing advertising, you could see ads that were basically fact sheets. does anybody know what a fact sheet is? i know it is monday morning, but come on. no one can tell me what it is. ok, yes? >> you look at various sides of an issue with bullet points --

you reiterate your points and what you want to get a form -- what you want to get across. >> that is right. is a way of reiterating the message that you just told them. a lot of lobbying persuasion is like teaching. this is what i am going to teach you. this is what i am teaching you. this is what i just taught you. and he used the fact sheet has "this is what i just talked you" part. one page of bullet points with factoids on them or in them, and you run those ads. if you are far too detailed to read out to the general public, or what i like to call civilians, but it is very appropriate to leave behind for either the representatives or the staff are even with the

media. for example on global warming, you might have a few factoids like the house bill will cost the average household only $160 per family per year. or another factoid is that it will create $1.7 million in new jobs. it will likely help reduce the federal -- help reduce the federal budget deficit. you put these factoids into fact sheets and put them into the paid ads. the reason why you put them into the page at it that they are more likely to be seen by staff or a member of congress than by just handing them a piece of paper or e-mail in them. again, the staff in particular get hundreds of messages a day all with at least three factoid siege. 300 factoids a day. they are flipping through to see whether the congressman did something embarrassing, and harrison at about global warming, 1.7 new jobs, produces

the federal budget deficit. that will have some impact on their thinking. even run these ads that you would never do with civilians but they do have a lot of impact with members and their staff and the media. in fact, we had run ads with quotes from firefighters talking about how we did not had to chop down trees to save them. that was the other side proposal. let's cut down all these trees before they catch on fire. to prevent forest fires. and before they died. we put in a bunch of quotes from firefighters, and that at year- end, it was really effective in getting our message out. we had sent them the same information three other times. but because it was in a paid ad, it had impact. that is a second use. the third use is outside

washington, d.c., you can use paid media to again raise the visibility of the issue. one of the things that we did once is another clean air campaign where we ran ads on the more fuel-efficient cars and a place. the representative, his white heard them on the radio at home. she made it clear to her husband that he needed to be good on this issue. we were able to raise the visibility of the issue by running the ads at home. in addition, you can use them to persuade. to seek the support of an elected official before a decision is made. in that example, we said, be sure to call the congressman and get him to vote for cleaner cars. in fact, we ran the ads so much, that his wife went to one of

our champions on the committee and said, please take off the ads. we will vote with you, okay? so the ad was very successful in persuading the congressman to support our position. so you can use them to persuade. you have to do that before the decision is made. if you run persuasion ads after the decision is made, that is a little late. if the member decides to vote in your favor, you can then thank him or her in the fall of bad. that is another way to use paid advertising -- in a follow-up had. that is another way to use paid advertising. you need to make sure that the person actually wants to be publicly thank. once we were working on an issue where a member of congress was supportive of international family planning, but in his

district, there were 70% catholic and he did not even want his constituents to know that he had voted right on this issue. the person working on this did not ask about that and found out the hard way. if you're going to thank someone from voting the way you ask to come and check with them first to make sure that they want to be publicly thank. and then if they decide against you, you can run ads that highlight the opposition to your calls. that can be an effective tool as well. you can run an ad that says the senator decided the vote with big oil and against limiting pollution because she wanted to help big oil and she has taken $1 million in campaign contributions from big oil. that is a hypothetical, and many members of congress have taken far more than $1 million. but you can use the ads to hold them accountable. that is a very important piece.

and when you are running persuasion ads, and you mentioned your name, call the representative and tell her that you want to support global reductions to make more energy -- to make america more energy independent, she knows that if you paid money to try to persuade her, what do you think what -- what does she think is going to happen if she votes against you? you very possibly could run ads against her afterward. i think we need those jumper cables to get them up. all right. it is a very important tool, running a persuasion ad, but to make them effective, if you have to name the name of the representative and senator who you are targeting. once they know you're running a persuasion that, that can be fairly sure that you will run a

negative ad against them if they vote against you. that is a very important thing for you can use persuasion ads for and forming, persuading, banking, holding accountable, and we call those either thank you ads, or says this is on c- span, spank you ads. you can run ads that are designed to create all large impression about the senator or representative's record. you can run them around election time, the months leading up to an election, highlighting the fact that senator davidson had been a strong supporter of clean energy reform and creating a clean energy jobs here in virginia.

that can be very effective in helping create a favorable impression about senator davidson. simile, you could run ads that said, representative woods has voted against clean energy reform and clean energy jobs because she wants the -- she wants the support of bagel. please call him and tell him to start supporting clean energy reform. i want talk more about issue eds in a few minutes, but that is another purpose of issue ads, to create an overall impression favorably or negatively about the senator or representative. now what are the key elements of an ad campaign? the most important factor is what? does anyone have a guess? yes. that is an important piece but not the most important piece. any other gases? [inaudible]

that is an important piece that i will talk about but not the most important. [inaudible] >> the channels through which you communicate. >> just, management? >> budget? >> baingo. the more money you have, the more opportunities you have. the more money you have, the more targets -- the number of places that you can run advertising. question. that your budget for your campaign is $1 million? is that for everything are just your paid media. everything. that is relatively small. let's say you spend about half of that on paid advertising, $500,000.

all right. time flies when you're having fun. i'm going back zero a little bit longer, maybe 10 minutes. then we will take question. say you spend five and a thousand >>. depending on how many targets you had, that may not go very far. once you know your budget, you know the number of targets. çólet's say you're spending $500,000. i am thinking that that is enoughçó money for anywhere from three targets to seven targets. you're focusing on the senate so you have to run at me get statewide, or at least in key markets. that will make it more expensive. now with your targets are in smaller states like the dakotas, then you can do more.

if your state are larger states like florida, thing you can do less because it is more expensive there. in addition, you might want to look at your target a look at states where we have two senators to persuade and not just one. that can help you figure out which targets to pay. those are the two key factors in determining the rest budget and number targets. some kattegat's -- caveats. thanks to your generation, there has been a reduction in the importance of cable tv. there is on demand and that blacks, people are watching shows on huylu -- there is on demand and netflix, people are watching shows on hulu, playing

video games, and all those things are taking up people's time and taking eyeballs away from the television screen or form paid advertising on the television screen. we of the situation where it takes more and more money to change your and your viewers. that is a consideration -- to change the work and you work viewers. -- fewer and fewer viewers. does anybody know what a gross rating point is? about 100 gross rating points -- yes. >> proper saturation for market. it is based on how many people are likely to do your television ad. >> yes, each 100 points the bridge -- averages 100 average of yours. instead of 700 points a week of

broadcast tv, it would be enough to get your message across. now you need 6000 if not more. the more points that you have to buy, the more ads that you have to buy, which means the more that it is going to cost you. so -- so you've got your budget, 500,000, say, you've got your target, anywhere from three to seven. then you have to ask, who's your target audience, which someone mentioned, which is an important piece. is it swing voters? is it women? is it elites? is it your base? in an issue campaign, you almost always, unless you're quite wealthy and have a large amount of money, like the big oil companies, which have spent $100 million in 2009 on advertising against global warming legislation, unless you're like them, you've got to really sort of target very carefully. so with a of a a million dollars, you're not going to persuade many people with that, so what you need to focus on is either elites, which means both

paid media -- i'm sorry. the journalists, those are people who used to write for the thing we used to have called newspapers, now they usually write for websites, so journa journalists are elites, you know, corporate leaders, community leaders, high information voters, people like us, who actually care about this sort of stuff. those are sort of the elites. you can aim for them, which means you'd buy on cnn or maybe local news shows, or fox or msnbc, or for base voters. the people who already agree with you, who you're trying to activate. so if you're trying to activate conservatives, you'd advertise on fox. if you're trying to activate progressives, you might advertise on msnbc, and those are sort of your base. or if you're trying to get women voters, you might do lifetime or advertise during oprah or other things that are more prone to

women voters. if you're trying to get old white guys, you would advertise on the bass fishing channel. you know, or swing voters, you might want to target local news, or there's other -- your media buyer will help you figure out how to reach the audience you're going to reach. ok. so once you know your audience, you can pick your medium. if you're going after elites, you can -- usually cnn is a good bet for high information elite voters, because like i said, you know, if you've got a senate office in the state, they may have cnn running hall the time. or you can do around local news shows. you know, tv is very expensive, broadcast, so you need a really big budget. cable tv is very cost effective and is really good at reaching niche audiences as we were talking about, so that's often a good mace to go. talk -- place to go.

talk radio is a good place to reach elites, like for example, in d.c., you would run on wgop, which has news and weather every eight minutes. you would run it there and catch that audience. also, talk radio is an excellent tool for reaching your bails, particularly for conservatives, so you would run your ads on rush limbaugh or glen beck or on the sean hannity loves glen beck shows. for progressive base, it's harder to use radio, because their base radio is national public radio, which you can't buy ads on, but you can do soft advertising. all things considered, this half-hour is sponsored by the coalition to stop global warming. but you can't have any more deeper message than that. so it's harder to target the, you know, progressive base with radio. print advertising, newspaper

advertising, in my view is almost never a good use of our dollars, which is one of the reasons why newspapers are in decline, unless and here's one thing that it is good for, you want to show the breadth of a coalition. in a radio or tv ad, you can have this had was brought to you by the coalition to clean up, you know, the environment, or clean energy works, is another coalition you could use. but you can't run a long list of people. on a print ad, you can. so if you wanted to show broad depth of support for your position, you can take out a print ad and then have 100 groups sign on to it and their names are in tiny print and everyone from that group will look for their name and it's a good way of showing breadth of your coalition. so in my view, that's the best time to use print advertising. otherwise, it's not as effective. so the next question you have to ask, is where. since you're focusing on senate, what is the key market.

say you're targeting a senator from missouri. is the key market st. louis? is it kansas city? is it springfield? is it jefferson city. no, of course not. no one lives there. but, you know, you have to pick your market and see where you're trying to reach people. if in fact, you were trying to reach elites, you might want to advertise in jefferson city, because it's the capital of missouri, an that's where there's a base of reporters that cover government and politics there, as well as the governor and a lot of state workers, so you might want to do jefferson city. if you're trying to target the base of say, senator mccaskill, then you might want to go to st. louis or kansas city. if you're trying to target the base of a republican senator, you might go to springfield, which is a very important republican city in the district. so you want to pick the place where the individuals would have the most impact on them and where you're audience is. then when is the most effective

time to run the ads? one of the challenges in trying to run the ads, to either persuade, inform, or do anything before the vote, is figuring out when the vote is going to be. because the senate has no rules, and the number one rule of the senate is everything will happen later than they say it will, and so figuring out the timing is really important. you don't want to go too early, because then it will get lost in further traffic, and if you run it two months before, no one is going to remember. you don't want to run it right before the vote, because the person may have made up their mind by then. you want to run your ads like one or two weeks out. if you can figure out when that is. now, if you're on the side that is trying to pass the global warming bill, your allies are going it set the timing, so you can talk to them and say, when do we need to start running our paid advertising, when do you think the vote is going to be and they might say the vote will be on april 22, that is the 40th anniversary of earth day.

so then you might target your ads for the two weeks before. it can also help if you can target the ads for when the members are at home. so they're more likely to hear or see them. a good example, going back to what we talked about with the clean cars, going back to the clean cars, is that while the member was here, his wife was at home and was able to hear the ads on the radio, so that's a very important piece. then lastly, somebody mentioned the message. that's a really important piece too. it's got to be consistent with your hobbing message, with your other communications, it's got to be consistent with everything else you're saying, and -- so if you're talking to senator woods about job creation, when you go into meet with him and his staff, you need to talk about job creation in your ads. ok. so you've got to make sure the ads reinforce your other messages. we're going to talk briefly

about how you increase the reach of your ad, then we'll take questions. when you're ready to release your ads, it helps to expand their reach's effectiveness, to generate earned media coverage. does anyone know what earned media coverage is? yes? >> it's one that a media outlet covers a story about you, but you didn't pay them to do it. >> exactly. used to be called free media, but everyone knows it takes a lot of work to spend money on to get that free media, so most people call it earned media. that was a very effective technique in the olden days and by olden days, i mean the 1990's, but it's lost some of its ability to generate news, because so many people have used it. hit me give you an example. in the year 2000, actually, it was 1999, we ran ads about george w. bush's clean record, terrible record on clean air in texas, and we ran them before

the new hampshire primary. we spent only $30,000 on the ad, which is a small amount of money and we probably got about $200,000 worth of free media on it. that's harder to happen these days, but it's still possible if if you do it at the right time. you can also put the ad on your web site or put it on youtube and have a link to it. be sure to e-mail copies of the ad to your supporters, if that state, to make sure they know about the ad and that they forward it and if it's a funny ad or a really good ad, it might go viral. that's a long shot, but you have to make sure your supporters see it. you can also use your ad as part of a fund mailing raising to your supporters. here's an ad, we want to put on the air, if you contribute x amount of dollars, we can raise $100,000 and get this ad up to persuade senator utley to support the clean energy act. so it's important to do that, in

order to maximum highs leverage of your ads. -- maximum highs leverage of your ads. so you have two strategies, inside game, outside game, if you're paid media, you're using the outside game. you use outside media to summer wade the member, thank the member or spank the member. the key elements of the ad is money, money, an money. then you figure out your targets and those two things will affect whether you run broadcast tv, cable tv, radio, or print, and make sure that you maximize the reach of your ads. yes. i'll take questions now. >> sorry to interrupt. let's start with money. they don't have a lot of money, but they do have the possibility of getting a coalition together that all contributes to an ad campaign. is that a common thing? >> very common, particularly in the global warming debate on the anti-side, the oil companies all have a big trade association, called the american petroleum institute and it's the api

that's been with running a lot of the ads. i don't know if they ran the post today. i know they ran the post within the last couple of weeks, that they've been running their messages and that's an example of a coalition pooling resources. if you're on the clean energy side, you might want to make coalition efforts with clean energy companies, like wind companies or solar companies or construction companies that do energy efficiency and have them contribute to your campaign, because they will benefit economically if you succeed. other questions. yes, sir. >> i have a question about the cap and trade. is there any discussion about what they're going to use the money from the permits for? >> yes. there's a lot of discussion with that and for those of you not familiar in the clean energy and global warming bills pending before the senate, they basically establish a dumping

feed for pollution. instead of dumping the pollution on the land, you have to pay a dumping fee for dumping it in the hair. that will raise money and that money will be used for several things, number one is to defray the cost in electricity on rate payers, some will be invested in clean energy, like investing in wind or solar power, some will go to trade sensitive -- i'm sorry, energy intensive trade agencies, to other companies that don't -- those are the kinds of things where the money is being talked about. yes, sir? >> long question, it's actually inside baseball. in your capacity at company as director of farmland strategy, who would you say, maybe like three ar four names, because you've been using all the these fake senators' names, that would be the top senators to target, the ones you see as most likely to go either way on the issue, where it's really up in the air

right now, just a few names? >> well, if you're asking me to give you my target list on c-span, i don't think i'm going to do that. however, you can figure out the names yourself, and those are predominantly midwestern senators from manufacturing states, and some farm state and moderate conservative republicans. you got a large number of members in the senate, anywhere from 20 to 30 who do not even believe that global warming exists. you can write those people all right away. and then you have centers on the republican side who will not vote for anything the president obama wants. so you can write them off. then you have some progressives that you know support action, so you want to be in touch with them but you do not want to spend resources on them. and then you have people like i

described. conservative senator lindsey graham has joined forces with progressive senator john kerry and joe lieberman in order to get a package for moderates and conservatives. that effort is in its infancy. if that gathers steam, which we hope it will, that will hopefully attract some of the swing senators. [inaudible] >> thank you had with short example. have you communicated with the center before doing ads at all? -- with the center before doing ads at all? -- the senator before doing ads at all? and see? >> well, first of all, it's important not to promise any

member of congress a quid pro quo. if if you do x, then we will do y, because that would certainly be wrong and in many cases, might even be illegal. now i'm not a lawyer, although i live with one, my spouse, which means she win wins every argume. so you don't want to do that. if you're running a persuasion ad, you want to give a heads up to the office in advance and give them a script, but you don't want to do it too much in advance. you don't want to do it a week in advance. you might have want to do it the day before. they will know -- i mean, in a high visibility issue like this, the members know they're going to be targets of persuasion efforts from both sides, so it's not going to be a surprise to them if they're running an ad that you might be running ads. then if you're going to run a thank you ad, you want to check in advance to make sure it's ok with them, because you might say, you know, let this be

between just us, and then, the third case, if you're running a spank you ad, there's no need to inform them in advance, because these are not your friends, these are your opponents. yes. >> talking about broadcast ads, i know a large majority of the budget for those is when and how much. so what time slots would you suggest for us and how many times a day would you suggest? >> well, remember that max said you need to run, you know, up to a thousand gross rating points a week and you know, your ad buyer will tell you what shows, what slots will add up to that. given your limited budgets, you want to focus on a buy that attracts your audience. if your audience is elites, you run it around news. a good time to run ads in washington, that are visibility ads, are around the sunday talk shows. you know, "meet the press," this week, face the nation, that's a good time to reach elites. without spending a lot of money.

and so you might focus on that. if your target is your base, then you're going to want to run the ads enough to get your base involved, so if your base is progressive, you might want to run around news shows, like i said, the best thing to do, the progressive medium of choice is national public radio, but you can't really run ads there, and running the sort of generic ads i ran i don't think is very effective frankly, unless you're trying to drive traffic to your web site an even then, it may only be of modest success, so you want to figure out based on the numbers, what shows those people watch. it might be the sunday talk shows, it might be local news, and local news is usually often a good time to get them. it might be on shows like you know, i don't know, law & order or something like that, which is going to be expensive. and again, it depends on the state. if you're buying ads in north dakota, it's going to be a lot cheaper than if you're buying

them in florida. >> >> you mentioned that it's important to have a clear strategy theme and message, where people agree on it. is that a problem in these campaigns, to get so many different groups to agree on what the message is, and is it the situation sometimes where they overlap and they go against each other? >> that's an excellent point. there's been times that the environmental moment resembles what will rogers once said, he once said, along to know organized political party, i'm a democrat, and there have been times when various ads run by various groups didn't use its language or focus on the parts of the debate that pollsters and opinion research has pointed to. but now the environmental community has what's called the clean energy works campaign, which is sort of an umbrella campaign, where everybody is singing natalie from the -- singing not only from the same song book, but the same hymn, they're on the same line and

they're singing the same notes and that's really essential. if you go on the industry side, they're all over the map, because the big oil is going to focus enema's lien prices, where -- on gasoline prices, whereas the coal industry is going to focus on jobs. those messages are different. that's one of the challenges of a business coalition is their bottom lines in the advertising campaign is their bottom lines in their business. and so that's makes it harder sometimes for them. now, obviously, one of the iron rules of congress is, it's always easier to stop things than it is to get things done. so coordination isn't as important if you're just trying to stop things, because then you're just throwing everything you can against the wall and see what sticks. since this is on c-span, we'll say throwing spaghetti at the wallace opposed to -- all, as opposed to other things. >> you were saying, an environmental group, say you have a million dollar budget and

your advertising budget is about half. in our academic exercise that we're doing, we're given a total budgets of a million dollars that includes our grassroots effort, includes the lobbyist's fees, includes the coalition building, contribution, public opinion poll, if we're going to go that way. how much and when would you suggest, as far as these kind of items? >> well, grassroots organizing is very cost effective, because putting a person on the ground costs anywhere from, you know, depending on how cheap you are, from $3,000 to $5,000 a month. maybe a little bit more. that's much cheaper than running an ad that might cost you $10,000 every time you run it on "american idol." of course you only run ads on "american idol" if your target audience are tweens. so you know, you have to think about who your target is. if your target is from a sparsely populated state, you

can have a relatively smaller media budget. if your target is from a relatively large state, with a lot of media markets, like for example, florida has seven major media markets, you're going to pick one or two markets to focus on in terms of paid ads. it's my view that you want to concentrate your money, spend more money on fewer targets and then spend more money on fewer media markets or each target than running five ads here and five ads this in a different market, it adds up to nothing. so you want to target very carefully. you know, in a state like florida, that's your target state, you might want to forget tv altogether and just do radio, because radio is much cheaper. you know, it's interesting, in house campaigns, where tv can be very effective, is you can buy cable by congressional district, so even if you're trying to affect somebody in los angeles, you may only have to buy their c.d., which is very affordable, whereas if you're trying to affect a senator from

california, there's no way paid media will make any difference really. >> media can be combined with paid media? >> you want to make sure the message in your earned media reflects your message in your paid media. so if your paid media message is around the jobs that will be created with clean energy reform and global warming bill, you want to talk about jobs in earned media. you want to have studies that will show how many jobs will be created. the more state specific they are, the more effective they'll be. you want to do media events at say a new wind farm or a new factory that is opened up. a good example, look at president obama, when he delivered his earth day request, he went to a factory in iowa that used to produce washing machines that was chosed and now reopened and now produces i believe steel for wind turbines, so that sort of reinforced his message of earned media.

obviously if you're the president, you get covered no matter what you to, but if you're running a campaign, wasn't to think of events like that. so if you're talking about a job, you want to reflect all of your earned media jobs. if you're on the other side and want to convince people it's going to cost too much, you want to focus all your earned media on costs with studies and other events, just like your ads talk about costs. so that's how you reflect it. rachel? >> -- how important do you think it is to focus on the environmental effects that are going on? because i know you said there are certain members who are never going to believe in global warming, so how poontang it is to focus on the environment versus jobs and costs? >> first of all, the senators in the senate who don't believe global warming is real, you can't talk to him about jobs. it's not worth going to talk to him if you're trying to pass a bill. i think in terms of messaging,

that depends on your polling. say you're focused on say, florida, then you want to poll there to find out what the most salient issue is. in florida, it might be, you know, we're going to be under water, or we're going to suffer huge devastating hurricanes, or the everglades may dry up or our beaches will be destroyed, whatever they find there. that's maybe what you want to talk about there. if you're doing a farm state, it may be the number one thing to talk about is here's hall the opportunities that farmers are going to have to increase their income. they're going to be able to rent their land for wind turbines, they're going to be able to sell offsets, so people, you know, pay you not to pollute, you know, you're going to make biofuels out of somebody's crop, so that may be the thing to talk about there. that's where polling is important. in your campaigns by the way, i would recommend that nobody does any nationwide polling, because unless you don't have money, unless you only have money for

one pole, because what you want to do is have polling results that focus on the states you're focused on. if you're focused on five states and each poll costs $40,000 each, that's 20% of your budget. so maybe what you want to do is say you're focused on, say, illinois and iowa, you focus on iowa, do a poll there and hope that the results are similar enough to guide you in illinois. >> i'm curious to know whether you find alternative forms of advertisement, say, ads on a bus, or on a subway ortegas station, for example, those kind of advertisements to be effective in advocacy campaigns? >> they can be, depending on the size of the place you're trying to do them in. they're very valuable for raising the visibility of the issue. but you know, like if you're in a city like seattle, where they've got a lot of buses, it can be very effective. if you're in a city like detroit

where you don't have that many buses, not as effective. it's much harder though to have a message -- i mean, the message has to be very simple, like three ar four words and the guy's name, your target's name. >> laura? >> you talked a lot about talk radio, and what do you -- what are your thoughts on actually having someone on the show talking about the issue as opposed to an ad, like if you are going against it, and you want a of can difficult to go on a conservative talk show just to raise the visibility of the issue. >> that's a great example of earned media, getting somebody from your side to be on a talk show. hopefully one that's sympathetic and can arouse your base. so if you're the anti side on this base, trying to get your people on conservative talk radio would be a very valuable thing to do. it's harder to do on the pro action side, because frankly, there's much less progressive talk radio, so there are some

shows, like that's where you target your national public radio, your local public radio if you're on the pro side, because that's your base, it's going to be listening to that and that's how you reach them. >> dan, thank you very much. >> t >> you need more money, so be creative about bringing more money in. they are also expecting coalitions to bring in money to help. >> but stealing is never a good idea. and i'm very glad to be the best speaker that you ever had this decade. thank you very much. >> we will take two minutes for about for our next speaker to set up for c-span.